No. 32 of 108
July 15, 2025
Forced to continue responding eight days in, Attorney General Bondi says Epstein memo (no client list, no evidence it was anything but a suicide) “speaks for itself. MAGA world audibly doesn’t buy it. On the day the memo was released, Epstein Google searches were up 1900% from the previous week, and ‘Epstein + Trump’ was the highest trending search term. MAGA doesn’t buy it, hard and loud, but a new survey shows Democrats have a higher degree of skepticism of the report than Republicans. Bondi and Trump among others had stoked coverup beliefs, so their inability to produce anything is “inconvenient.” Also inconvenient: moving from repeatedly vouching for Putin (“I believe he wants peace… I trust him on this…”) to “he fooled a lot of people, he didn’t fool me,” from announcing a quick ceasefire four months ago to greenlighting additional Patriot missiles to Ukraine.
Reality is inconvenient, especially if something other than reality is promoted, boosted, cultivated. A 2024 study by the University of Illinois Chicago found that folx are not good at identifying what is or isn’t a conspiracy theory when it’s something they believe, and it doesn’t matter whether they self-identify on one side of the ideological spectrum or another. This phenom is called “conspiracy blindness.” As we are so inclined, it is no wonder that we would believe that which we are inclined to believe and strongly reject that which works against our closely held narrative. Whether it is attached to reality or not, our beliefs are our reality. What to do about this phenom? Take a step back, interrupt the emotional pull, and be openly curious about all the things. And embrace the reality that there are many unexplainable things and complex realities. Sometimes the monolithic institution, government or not, is hiding something. And sometimes what they’re hiding is something they don’t believe in at all so there is no truth being hidden, only non-truths, from their perspective. And sometimes, they don’t know and that’s what they’re masking. And sometimes, there is nothing there.